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Russian Novelist and Literary Legend Yevgeny Yevtushenko to Read at Hamilton College

Internationally renowned poet and author
of 18 books Yevgeny Yevtushenko will read from his work on Wednesday, March 4,
at 8 p.m., in the Hamilton College Chapel. The event is free and open to the
public.

Born in Zima Junction, Siberia, Yevtushenko is probably Russia's best-known
living poet. He published his first poem at the age of 16 and his first novel
at 19. In 1960, the 27-year-old Yevtushenko became the first Russian poet to
break the Iron Curtain and to recite his poetry in the West. In 1961, he
published what is probably his best-known and most controversial poem "Babi
Yar," about anti-Semitism.

An active political dissident, Yevtushenko protested the Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia, wrote a poem denouncing the war in Afghanistan and campaigned
for the release of Vaclav Havel from prison. In December 1994, to protest the
bloodshed in Chechnya, Yevtushenko publicly refused to accept Russia's highest
honor "The Order of Friendship Between Peoples" from Boris Yeltsin.

From 1988 to 1991, Yevtushenko served as a member of the first freely elected
Soviet parliament. In August 1991, he witnessed the collapse of the Soviet
Union, which is the subject of his last novel Don't Die Before You're
Dead (Random House, 1995).

Yevtushenko's visit to Hamilton is sponsored by the departments of English,
Russian Studies and comparative literature and the President's Focus Series on
Civility, Diversity and Conflict Resolution.

The reading will be followed by a reception and book-signing at Emerson
Gallery.